The Tao of Politics > Miriam Lyons @ TEDxCANBERRA

It's Miriam Lyons' job to envision new ways for society to imagine itself. In her speech at TEDx Canberra 2010, Lyons asks why society and human nature are out of balance? Her search for an answer takes on the ambitious task of looking at the current state of our society, the inherent contradictions of our nature, and what we can do about living better lives in the future.

"I think we are getting closer to an Einstein moment in our understanding of human nature", she muses. "We've been through a phase in which the economics of self-interest has dominated our worldview.

"Our bakers and butchers may be bastards, but that doesn't matter if they still swap bread for dough. Greed was good, society didn't exist. Everywhere we looked we looked for selfish behaviour, and we found a whole global financial crisis full of it.

"We are now at a point where we're rediscovering our caring, sharing, interconnected side - and we're also learning more about how the Madoffs and the Mother Theresas of the world are made."